"Neighbours" by Tim Winton is a short story that has been included in the curriculum of Class 12 students. In this post, we will delve into the "Neighbours" Class 12 exercise by providing a comprehensive summary of the story, analyzing its characters, and answering some important questions that arise from the plot. This post is an excellent resource for all students of Class 12 who are looking to gain a deeper understanding of the story "Neighbours". Get ready to explore the complexities and intricacies of Tim Winton's writing and immerse yourself in the world of "Neighbours".
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Summary of Neighbours
Characters in the story Neighbours
The Man: He is one of the main characters in this story. He is recently married to the woman, an unnamed character in the story. He writes these for a living. The man with his wife has migrated to a new place.
The Woman: She is also one of the main characters in this story. She is recently married to the man, an unnamed character in the story. She works at a hospital. The woman has migrated to a new place with her husband.
The Polish widower: He is one of the neighbors of the couple. He lives on the right side of the couple’s house. He hammers nails in logs of wood for no reason. His intention seems to disturb his new neighbors.
The Macedonian family: They are neighbors of the couple. The family consists of the mother, the father, and the child. They live on the left side of the couple’s house. They’re very loud. The noise they make often disturbs the newly migrated couple.
The setting of the story Neighbours:
The story takes place in a neighborhood in Moreton Bay.
The message of the story Neighbours:
Cultural and linguistic barriers cannot stop people from showing love and affection
Summary in one sentence: A newlywed couple moves into a new neighborhood where they’re not welcomed at first but as time passes, they mix in with the neighbors and share the joy of birth.
Complete summary of the story Neighbours
There lived a newlywed couple who recently shifted into a new neighborhood in the city of Moreton Bay, Australia. Previously, they used to live in a suburban area where they had little contact with their neighbors. In the current neighborhood there lived a Macedonian family on the right side and an old Polish widower on the left of the couple’s new house.The loud conversations of the Macedonian family and the useless hammering of the Polish widower made the couple feel irritated and unwelcome in the neighborhood as it was new to them. The couple’s house was small and high-ceilinged. It also had paned windows. The house gave the feeling of an elegant cottage. The couple also had a dog of collie breed. They walked it in a nearby park. The park could be seen from the man’s study room window.
The relationship between the neighbors and the new couple was not good even after several months.
The couple used to wake up late. The young man stayed at home and also cooked. The woman (the man’s wife) worked at a hospital. They (neighbors of the couple) didn’t like the man staying at home and the woman working outside. They expected the man to work outside and the woman to stay at home.
As autumn came the couple thought of cleaning their backyard and starting a farm. They did that after manuring the soil. They planted leeks, onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broad beans. Unexpectedly, the neighbors came to the fence and offered advice on spacing, hilling, and mulching. The man didn’t like the interference but he noted all the advice. Also, the woman with big black eyes and big arms gave the woman a bagful of garlic cloves to plant.
After some time, the couple also decided to make a henhouse but they failed. The Polish widower came uninvited and helped to build it for them.
As time passed winter came and the couple started to smile back at the neighbors. They started enjoying their companion and also started spending time with them. They also exchanged gifts. Now the couple was proud to be a part of their neighborhood and felt proud when their parents came to visit. The couple had also reared Muscovies a silent breed of ducks.
As time passed spring came. The Macedonian family also taught the couple how to slaughter, pluck and dress ducks. One day they all sat on blocks and upturned buckets, the men were butchering whereas the women were plucking. The cat they had started playing with several heads and the child was pulling the cat’s tail which ended up in the couple shouting as well.
After a few months, the woman became pregnant. It was not a planned pregnancy. They were not expecting to become parents at a such young age. Then the woman planned for maternity leave. Not after long, the whole neighborhood knew about the pregnancy and people started smiling at them tirelessly.
The new couple started receiving gifts from everyone. Time passed and now it was late summer. The laborer came unexpectedly. The young man abandoned his thesis and called the midwife. When he went out to collect firewood, he saw 12 faces smiling at him giving their best wishes. She had a hot bath. She demanded liverwurst while eating ice. Then came the pushing. He stared at her and caressed her. After a tough time, a baby boy was born. The man heard shouting outside. He went to the back door. He saw the faces he started to cry tears of joy because he realized his neighbors' care, concern, and affection.
Tim Winton, full name Timothy John Winton, (b. 1960) is an Australian author of both adult and children’s novels that deal with both the experience of life in and the landscape of his native country. He competed with 35 other novelists for The Australian Literary Award presented for the best unpublished novel manuscript and won the prize in 1982 for his manuscript An Open Swimmer. His novels include That
Eye, the Sky (1986), Dirt Music (2001), and Breath (2008). He also wrote several children’s books, including Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo (1990), The Bugalugs Bum Thief (1991), and The Deep (1998). This story ‘Neighbours’ has been taken from Migrants of Australia edited by Harwood Lawler.
a. How many languages are spoken in your community? Do people in your community understand each other’s mother tongue?
b. How do the neighbours help each other in your neighbourhood?
Class 12 Neighbours [Original Text]
It is a story about a newly married couple living in a multicultural and multilingual suburb neighborhood. It shows that cultural and linguistic barriers cannot stop people from bestowing love and compassion.
When they first moved in, the young couple were wary of the neighbourhood. The street was full of European migrants. It made the newly-weds feel like sojourners in a foreign land. Next door on the left lived a Macedonian family. On the right, a widower from Poland.
The newly-weds' house was small, but its high ceilings and paned windows gave it the feel of an elegant cottage. From his study window, the young man could see out over the rooftops and used car yards the Moreton Bay figs in the park where they walked their dog. The neighbours seemed cautious about the dog, a docile, moulting collie.
The young man and woman had lived all their lives in the expansive outer suburbs where good neighbours were seldom seen and never heard. The sounds of spitting and washing and daybreak watering came as a shock. The Macedonian family shouted, ranted, screamed. It took six months for the newcomers to comprehend the fact that their neighbours were not murdering each other, merely talking.
The old Polish man spent most of his day hammering nails into wood only to pull them out again. His yard was stacked with salvaged lumber. He added to it, but he did not build with it.
Relations were uncomfortable for many months. The Macedonians raised eyebrows at the late hour at which the newcomers rose in the mornings. The young man sensed their disapproval at his staying home to write his thesis while his wife worked. He watched in disgust as the little boy next door urinated in the street. He once saw him spraying the cat from the back step. The child's head was shaved regularly, he assumed, in order to make his hair grow thick. The little boy stood at the fence with only his cobalt eyes showing; it made the young man nervous.
In the autumn, the young couple cleared rubbish from their backyard and turned and manured the soil under the open and measured gaze of the neighbours. They planted leeks, onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and broad beans and this caused the neighbours to come to the fence and offer advice about spacing, hilling, mulching. The young man resented the interference, but he took careful note of what was said. His wife was bold enough to run a hand over the child's stubble and the big woman with black eyes and butcher's arms gave her a bagful of garlic cloves to plant.
Not long after, the young man and woman built a henhouse. The neighbours watched it fall down. The Polish widower slid through the fence uninvited and rebuilt it for them. They could not understand a word he said.
As autumn merged into winter and the vermilion sunsets were followed by sudden, dark dusks touched with the smell of wood smoke and the sound of roosters crowing day's end, the young couple found themselves smiling back at the neighbours. They offered heads of cabbage and took gifts of grappa and firewood. The young man worked steadily at his thesis on the development of the twentieth century novel. He cooked dinners for his wife and listened to her stories of eccentric patients and hospital incompetence. In the street, they no longer walked with their eyes lowered. They felt superior and proud when their parents came to visit and to cast shocked glances across the fence.
In the winter they kept ducks, big, silent muscovies that stood about in the rain growing fat. In the spring the Macedonian family showed them how to slaughter and to pluck and to dress. They all sat around on blocks and upturned buckets and told barely understood stories — the men butchering, the women plucking, as was demanded. In the haze of down and steam and fractured dialogue, the young man and woman felt intoxicated. The cat toyed with severed heads. The child pulled the cat's tail. The newcomers found themselves shouting.
But they had not planned on a pregnancy. It stunned them to be made parents so early. Their friends did not have children until several years after being married — if at all. The young woman arranged for maternity leave. The young man ploughed on with his thesis on the twentieth century novel.
The Polish widower began to build. In the late spring dawns, he sank post and poured cement and began to use his wood. The young couple turned in their bed, cursed him behind his back. The young husband, at times, suspected that the widower was deliberately antagonizing them. The young wife threw up in the mornings. Hay fever began to wear him down.
Before long the young couple realized that the whole neighbourhood knew of the pregnancy. People smiled tirelessly at them. The man in the deli gave her small presents of chocolates and him packets of cigarettes that he stored at home, not being a smoker. In the summer, Italian women began to offer names. Greek women stopped the young woman in the street, pulled her skirt up and felt her belly, telling her it was bound to be a boy. By late summer the woman next door had knitted the baby a suit, complete with booties and beanie. The young woman felt flattered, claustrophobic, grateful, peeved.
By late summer, the Polish widower next door had almost finished his two-car garage. The young man could not believe that a man without a car would do such a thing, and one evening as he was considering making a complaint about the noise, the Polish man came over with barrowful of wood scraps for their fire.
Labour came abruptly. The young man abandoned the twentieth century novel for the telephone. His wife began to black the stove. The midwife came and helped her finish the job while he ran about making statements that sounded like queries. His wife hoisted her belly about the house, supervising his movements. Going outside for more wood, he saw, in the last light of the day, the faces at each fence. He counted twelve faces. The Macedonian family waved and called out what sounded like their best wishes.
As the night deepened, the young woman dozed between contractions, sometimes walking, sometimes shouting. She had a hot bath and began to eat ice and demand liverwurst. Her belly rose, uterus flexing downward. Her sweat sparkled, the gossamer highlight by movement and firelight. The night grew older. The midwife crooned. The young man rubbed his wife's back, fed her ice and rubbed her lips with oil.
And then came the pushing. He caressed and stared and tried not to shout. The floor trembled as the young woman bore down in a squat. He felt the power of her, the sophistication of her. She strained. Her face mottled. She kept at it, push after push, assaulting some unseen barrier, until suddenly it was smashed and she was through. It took his wind away to see the look on the baby's face as it was suddenly passed up to the breast. It had one eye on him. It found the nipple. It trailed cord and vernix smears and its mother's own sweat. She gasped and covered the tiny buttocks with a hand. A boy, she said. For a second, the child lost the nipple and began to cry. The young man heard shouting outside. He went to the back door. On the Macedonian side of the fence, a small queue of bleary faces looked up, cheering, and the young man began to weep. The twentieth century novel had not prepared him for this.
Macedonian (adj.):
from Macedonia, south-eastern Europe Moreton
Bay (n.):
a bay located on the eastern coast of Australia
moulting (adj.):
molting, hair growing.
grappa (n.):
a kind of alcoholic beverage, a fragrant grape-based Italian brandy
eccentric (adj.):
unconventional and strange
muscovy (n.):
a kind of large duck of South American origin
claustrophobic (adj.):
afraid of living in confined places
liverwurst (n.):
meat sausage also known as liver sausage
croon (v.):
hum or sing in a low soft voice
vernix (n.):
a greasy deposit covering the skin of a baby at birth
a. Describe how the young couple’s house looked like.
b. How did the young couple identify their neighbours in the beginning of their
arrival?
c. How did the neighbours help the young couple in the kitchen garden?
d. Why were the people in the neighborhood surprised at the role of the young man and his wife in their family?
e. How did the neighbours respond to the woman’s pregnancy?
f. Why did the young man begin to weep at the end of the story?
g. Why do you think the author did not characterize the persons in the story with proper names?
a. The story shows that linguistic and cultural barriers do not create any obstacle in human relationship. Cite some examples from the story where the neighbours have transcended such barriers.
b. The last sentence of the story reads “The twentieth-century novel had not prepared him for this.” In your view, what differences did the young man find between twentieth-century novels and human relations?
c. A Nepali proverb says “Neighbors are companions for wedding procession as well as for funeral procession.” Does this proverb apply in the story? Justify.
d. The author has dealt with an issue of multiculturalism in the story. Why do you think multiculturalism has become a major issue in the present world?
a. Write an essay on Celebration of Childbirth in my Community.
b. Do the people in your community respond with similar reactions upon the pregnancy and childbirth as depicted in the story? Give a couple of examples.
Neighbours class 12 exercise
Answer: The young couple's house is described as small, but having high ceilings and paned windows, giving it the feel of an elegant (सुन्दर) cottage.
Answer: The young couple identified their neighbors by the countries they are from - a Macedonian family on the left and a widower (विधुर) from Poland on the right.
Answer: The neighbors offered advice to the young couple about spacing, hilling, and mulching when they were planting leeks (हरियो प्याज), onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broad beans in their kitchen garden. The big woman with black eyes and butcher's arms even gave the young woman a bagful of garlic cloves to plant.
Answer: The people in the neighborhood were surprised at the role of the young man and his wife in their family because the young man stayed home to write his thesis while his wife worked, which was not the traditional (परम्परागत) gender roles in the community.
Answer: The neighbors responded to the woman's pregnancy by offering their congratulations and support.
Answer: The young man began to weep at the end of the story because he realized how supportive (सहयोगी) and generous (उदार) his neighbors were, whom he thought were irritating and uncivilized at first.
Answer: The author may have chosen not to use proper names for the characters in the story to make the story more relatable and universal (सर्वव्यापी), rather than tied to specific individuals.
Neigbhours Exercise [Long Question Answer]
Answer: In the story, the neighbors transcend (अगाडी जानु) linguistic and cultural barriers in several ways. For example, the young couple learns to understand and communicate with their Macedonian neighbors, despite the fact that they initially (सुरुमा) found their shouting and screaming confusing. The young couple also learns to understand and communicate with the Polish widower, despite the fact that they cannot understand a word he says. Additionally, the neighbors offer each other help and support, such as when the Polish widower rebuilds the young couple's henhouse after it falls down, and when the Macedonian family shows the young couple how to slaughter (वध) and pluck (उखेल्नु) ducks.
Answer: The young man may have found that the relationships he forms with his neighbors are more complex (जटिल) and nuanced (सूक्ष्म) than the relationships depicted in twentieth-century novels. In novels, relationships are often portrayed (चित्रित) in a more black and white manner, with characters being either good or bad, but in real life, relationships are often more complicated (जटिल) and require effort to maintain.
Answer: The Nepali proverb "Neighbors are companions for wedding procession as well as for funeral procession" applies in the story, as the young couple and their neighbors form close relationships and offer each other support in both happy and difficult times. For example, the neighbors offer congratulations and support when the young woman becomes pregnant, and they offer each other gifts of cabbage, grappa, and firewood. However, they also come together to offer each other support and comfort (आडभरोसा दिनु).